The First Thing in Seasoning Is Salt

BV SOUTH'S FORTRLOST SERsoninc EXPERT The First Thing in Seasoning is Salt Copyrighted. All rights reserved 1935 THE CAREY SALT COMPANY HUTCHINSON, KANSAS WINNFIELD, LOUISIANA OR almost a quarter of a century it has been my happy privilege to appear regularly before groups of women and discuss with them the engrossing subject of foods they serve. Yet looking back over these years, I am sure that my greatest joy has come not from my lectures nor from my writings but from the opportunities my work has given me to meet and chat with thousands of women about their personal culinary problems. There has been scarcely a day in all these years when someone has not said to me: "I suppose I might as well give up. I guess I'm just not a 'born cook'." Invariably my reply has been that if there is such a thing as a "bom cook," I have yet to see one; and that of all the nonsensical legends, the one that some women are bom with peculiarly instinctive skill for preparing foods is the most ridiculous. Goodness knows, if anyone should believe the folk lore that surrounds "bom cooks" —I suppose I should. On the southern plantation where I was born and spent my girlhood, my mother's authority in household matters extended no farther than the kitchen door. There the word of Aunt Caroline, our colored cook, was law, and for Mother or anyone else to have interferred would have been lese majeste. Everyone said Aunt Caroline was a "bom cook." Certainly she preserved the traditional mystery that seems to surround such unusual people, for she would never describe her recipes more accurately than "a pinch of this" and "a dash of that." Her only cook book was a worn copy of "The Virginia Housewife," which she held in great reverence, if not awe, and which she consulted on all important occasions. This same old cook book, now 100 years old, is before me as I write. And even if Aunt Caroline had followed its recipes to the letter, she would still have had no more accurate guide than "a pinch of this" and "a dash of that," for its instructions apparently were intended for "born cooks" only. So, as I say, I grew up in an environment where the belief that cooks were born — not made — was as much an accepted fact as that children should go to church every Sunday. It was only many years later, when my chosen profession made necessary a deep study of Culinary matters, that I realized what a pious old fraud Aunt Caroline and every other so-called "born cook" was. Aunt Caroline and every "born cook" I have ever heard of has devoted her life to a study of the art in which she excelled. When a "bom cook" casually says she uses "a pinch of this" or "a dash of that" in her recipe, you may be sure she knows almost to the grain just the amount that pinch or dash should be. How? Why, by constant study — by experiment- ing— by just plain hard work in the kitchen. I'm sure I have had thousands of women say to me: "Mrs. Stanfield, I attend your lectures and others like them every year. You tell me how to prepare special party things, unusual salads, desserts and luncheon plates. You give me recipes for these and I follow them, but what about everyday foods — those things that constitute nine-tenths of all my cooking? Honestly, when I leave your cook book I'm lost, and certainly I can't keep a cook book in front of me every minute I am in the kitchen." Nothing could be a more justifiable criticism of our modern methods of lecturing and writing on Culinary matters. I'm afraid that many of us to whom women turn for Culinary advice have been guilty of teaching senior courses to freshmen students. It was for that reason that I decided several years ago to write a book covering the fundamentals of cooking. When I began my research for this book, I was amazed to find how little was available on this important subject. There were, of course, volumes of recipes, and in each of them quantities and methods were fully explained — but that was just the trouble. I was searching for something that would tell the average housewife why certain ingredients were used — what they did to improve the recipe so that when she used that ingredien.t again without the cook book for guidance, she would have a knowledge of the value of that ingredient in all cooking. I began to question women about the simplest ingredients and how they used them in cooking when definite instructions in a cook book were not available. The answers I received convinced me that modern women give little if any thought to the basic science of preparing foods, and when they leave the cook book their everyday dishes never come up to those where they follow exact instructions. It was originally my intention to write a book covering the basic importance of those ingredients most frequently used in the preparation of the food we eat. Not from a health standpoint, for heaven knows we have had enough of that, but to try as best I could to tell the part sugar, salt, flour, milk, butter, shorteninq, pepper, etc. played in helping make our foods more appetizing — more savory — how, when and why they should be used — with the hope that these elementary- facts, reduced as nearly as possible to scientific accur- acy, would bring to modern women in quick, under- standable form, those fundamentals that "born cooks" learn by long hours spent over mixing tables and stoves. I soon realized, however that to do this would require a book far too costly for the purpose I had in mind. I wanted to produce a book that could be widely- distributed and at a very low price. It was then that I decided to take each of the most generally used ingredients separatly and describe the part that particular ingredient played in the preparation of the foods we eat. It was only natural that the first of such books should discuss salt — for salt is the one ingredient that is necessary in the preparation of all foods. But what is more important, my study has convinced me that while women use salt more regularly than any other single thing in the kitchen, they under- stand less about its use than that of anything else that goes into their recipes. What hostess hasn't had the embarrassing proof of this at her own table when some guest has tasted her most prized creation and then furtively reached for the saltcellar. In fact, so general has the custom of salting food at table become in America that often times families acquire the habit of salting foods even before tasting them. This can mean but one thing. Salt used at table is salt that should have been used in the kitchen — except, of course, on those foods that must be salted at table. For salt used at table can never impart the zestful flavor of salt that is cooked or prepared with the food itself. The function of salt in seasoning is as simple as it is misunderstood. Salt cooked in foods brings out and activates the flavor of the food you are preparing, no matter what it is. In roast meats, as an example, when salt is prop- erly used in the recipe it brings out the fine flavorful elements in the meat juice and rebastes those flavors back into the roast. No amount of salt used at table can possibly restore the flavor that the roast loses by the improper use of salt in its preparation. I know the thought that arises in your mind. You are thinking that the difference in personal tastes can only be satisfied by each individual seasoning with salt at table. Yet consider for a moment. If this were true, as we have been led to believe, the same thing might as well apply to any other seasoning ingredient you use. Just think how funny it would be if you were to go to a luncheon where cake was served and the hostess passed around a little vial of vanilla along with the cake for those guests who preferred a more pro- nounced vanilla flavor. My experiments have led me to believe, however, that this custom of using salt at table on prepared foods has arisen not from differences in taste but because the average cook has never realized the primary importance of using the right amount of salt and using it in the right way in her recipes. Many reasons are accountable for this paradoxical situation that has led us to give least thought to the most important seasoning ingredient. First, salt is so generally used that we simply take it for granted. Even in the most complete cook books, where pages are devoted to explanations of seasoning materials, salt is ignored. Then, too, salt is the only seasoning ingredient that is always on the table. We never .stop to think, however, that salt is kept on the table for those foods that must be salted when served. The attitude of the average housewife seems to be: "Oh, well, if I don't use the right amount of salt, my guests or my family can add salt at table." She would never think of adopting this attitude toward any other seasoning ingredient; yet women generally resign themselves to this haphazard use of salt.

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